There are parts of our lives that we're supposed to forget, supposed to pretend they never happened, just so we can stay in the moment and avoid the pain of remembering past pains and the pain of missing past joys. Move forward. Always move forward, and don't look back.

But when we refuse to look back, refuse to remember, we are suggesting that everyone and everything at that time was insignificant. It wasn't. Everything has added to who we are. Every regret. Every accomplishment. Every dream. Every hurt. Everything makes us the people we are today, individually and collectively. To deny that means that we, today, are insignificant, that pieces of each of us is insignificant, that our children and friends and joys and futures are insignificant.

Remembering the past does not keep you from moving forward. Forgetting it does. Forgetting it stops you from growing, stops you from learning from your mistakes and your successes.
Forgetting it waters down the emotions, the love we feel when we're with somebody we care about, the pride we feel when we overcome obstacles, the hope we have which keeps us going. The more we forget, the more we shrink into numbness.

In that numbness, it takes more to stimulate us. We must drink more to feel giddy. We must smoke more to feel calm. We must eat more and have sex more and push ourselves to the edge more to feel pleasure. We must drug ourselves more just to feel normal. All of the quantities increase, but the quality steadily declines. And all because we forget.

Labels: The Quest for Happiness